I usually do my bike-blogging here, but I thought this would be better at WWVB. Here's a series of actual tweets from just the other day by Cheryl Sarkisian, d/b/a Cher, who encountered bicyclists on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH):
Cher is OOC (out of control):
OMG, urr, Yuck indeed. I'd be inclined to dismiss this as the e-ranting of an out-of-touch elitist, but last night in Pittsburgh another driver ran over another bicyclist, which is happening a lot around here.
Although the event is tragic, it does provide an opportunity to read citizen comments on the accident, and that's a chilling experience. One portion of the good people of Pittsburgh say things like:
- You can't expect people to slow down to stay behind a bike. That's not going to happen. (Mr. Wayne Pace)
- bikers, instead of riding on narrow roads not wide enough for car traffic, like butler street and penn avenue, bike a block over on a street that runs parallel (Ms. Georgia Rush, who studied Systematic Theology at St. Vincent College)
- stay on the sidewalk where you belong (Mr. Shawn Cravener, who attended North Catholic High School)
- Bikers want a share of the road? Pay registration and carry insurance. They are riding the streets annonomously. (Mr. Bob Gentile)
- It's impossible for cars and bikes to coexist without the proper bike lane paths. (Mr. John B. Demko
Perhaps Cher IS representative of the population
If Cher is, in fact, representative of the mainstream population, we (bicyclists) are in serious trouble. We need an effective, startling, interesting communications piece about bikes on the road that wakes people up.Hmmm. Bikes on the road? Wake people up? Snakes on a plane? WTFU?
That's it! We need a Samuel Jackson Public Service Announcement!
Public Service Announcement: Slow the F*** Down
| Hello, this is Samuel Jackson. I'd like to ask you to work though a few situations with me that you might encounter when you're driving. It won't take long, and it might save you from a terrible accident which could expose you to delays, litigation, expenses - and most of all, the terrible feelings of having to explain to your family that you killed somebody with your car. Stick with me here. It'll be OK. I promise. |
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12 comments:
Love this!
Totally awesome. Shared
I love you.
Not to cause trouble, but I see a flaw in this argument. Cyclists don't usually wait in line with the cars at a red light. No garbage truck ever drove up the white line to get in front at the light, and then stuck ten cars behind him when it turned green.
Excellent, people need to freaking remember a biker could be their child, wife, uncle ... Themselves ... Respect
About the flaw in the argument - irrelevant. True that some don't wait at the red light and should be ticketed for that. I and everyone I know that rides with me and others actually do stop at the red light. They also usually ride to the front of the line usually right into the cross walk for safety; to get out of all blind spots and be as visible as possible. This is actually per safety guidelines as long as they make an effort to not block the right turn and thru traffic lanes to the extent that this is possible. I almost forgot to mention, they actually have a legal right to be there. So deal with it!!
A garbage truck doesn't have the same visibility concerns as a cyclist. Safety guidelines suggest a bicycle should wait in front if safe and practical to do so in order to stay out of all blind spots. As a courtesy, they should also where possible try to stay out of the way of the right turn lane traffic as well as thru traffic. At many intersections, this is often feasible. If waiting for a left green arrow, they can usually stay mostly out of the way of traffic behind them by making a wide left turn into the bicycle lane of the cross street that they are turning into.
Hey, I'm all for safe cycling and sharing the road. Although I'll admit it's inconvenient at times to go slower, it's not that bad.
However, my message to cyclists: Please, very actively, start cussing out the complete wastes of life with bicycles that think they can treat stoplights and red lights like they don't exist.
They do NOT help your cause, even though sharing the road would be lost on a lot of life wasters in cars that get mad because they'll miss the first five minutes of Honey Boo Boo.
To be honest, this post is brought on by the fact that I almost had one force me to commit manslaughter today by riding full speed through a stop sign at a two-way stop intersection. People like this don't belong in any place of society, and give you good cyclists a bad name.
They should be shamed into, at least, a behavior change, and at most, suicide, because their behavior WILL cause a perfectly respectable human being to accidentally take a human life, and I've been told living with that is basically a psychological nightmare.
tl;dr To cyclists and drivers, share the road, don't act like you own it, and make sure the ones that act like the own the road know that they belong in a special place in hell.
"almost had one force me to commit manslaughter today"
Please Josh, inferring threats of violence against someone like this is really uncalled for. It's easy to get angry when you're annoyed, but escalating the situation to violence is going to incite more hate.
If someone were to threaten to kill you because you went 10 miles over the speed limit or was impatient and wound up blocking the box at an intersection during rush hour, you would probably think that's uncalled for. I think your comments were totally uncalled for.
Call people who break the rules jagoffs all you want, just leave the violent threats out of it. It's not ok.
Love the PSA! Let's get that on TV!
"Benzo said...
"almost had one force me to commit manslaughter today"
Please Josh, inferring threats of violence against someone like this is really uncalled for. It's easy to get angry when you're annoyed, but escalating the situation to violence is going to incite more hate.
If someone were to threaten to kill you because you went 10 miles over the speed limit or was impatient and wound up blocking the box at an intersection during rush hour, you would probably think that's uncalled for. I think your comments were totally uncalled for.
Call people who break the rules jagoffs all you want, just leave the violent threats out of it. It's not ok."
I like how you infer your own situation out of my comment, it shows how delusional you and your more hardcore cyclist buddies are.
The person in question almost made me commit manslaughter by riding directly through a red light in front of my moving car, and if I hadn't smashed on my brakes, my car hitting the cyclist would have LITERALLY forced me to commit manslaughter because the car I was driving would have killed him.
I was more scared than anything, because I'm a human being like anybody else, which means I shouldn't have anybody's ignorance forcing me to know what it's like to take a life.
But....who cares. You retards will keep thinking "the law" overrides the laws of physics, and you'll keep trying to justify your riding to the point where it's an obvious power trip to inconvenience others. Keep riding through red lights on roads full of 3000 pound metal objects. And then you can all get mad and defensive when the next cyclist accidentally commits suicide.
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